BLAST Observations of Nearby Galaxies

• Main Authors: Thomas, N. E., Ade, Peter A. R., Bock, J. J., Chapin, E. L., Devlin, M. J., Dicker, S., Griffin, Matthew Joseph, Gundersen, J. O., Halpern, M., Hargrave, Peter, Hughes, D. H., Klein, J., Marsden, G., Martin, P. G., Mauskopf, Philip Daniel, Netterfield, C. B., Olmi, L., Pascale, Enzo, Patanchon, G., Rex, M., Scott, D., Semisch, C., Truch, M. D. P., Tucker, Carole, Tucker, G. S., Viero, M. P., Wiebe, D. V.
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society 2009
• Subjects: Canada; Antarc*; Antarctica; National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs
• Online Access: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/14945/; http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009AAS.21333502T

The Balloon-born Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) is a 1.8 m mirror that uses focal plane arrays of bolometer detectors at 250, 350 and 500 microns to study the evolutionary history and processes associated with star formation. The most recent long duration balloon flight from Antarctica collected 250 hours of data during a circumpolar flight in December 2006. A large number of observations were conducted including deep and wide surveys to characterize submillimeter galaxies, a galactic plane survey in the Vela region, and a number of pointed observations toward nearby galaxies NGC1097, NGC1291, NGC1365, NGC1512, NGC1566, and NGC1808. In this talk we will focus on these galaxies and combine the BLAST data with Spitzer-MIPS data to uniquely determine dust properties such as temperature and emissivity. The BLAST collaboration acknowledges the support of NASA through grants NAG5 12785, NAG5-13301, and NNGO-6GI11G, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), Canada's Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Innovation Trust, the Puerto Rico Space Grant Consortium, the Fondo Institucional para la Investigacion of the University of Puerto Rico, and the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs.